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Trappist Abbey

Made & Packed by the Trappist monks of Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey, Layfayette, Oregon 97127-0097

Monastery Date-Nut Cake

Made In Oregon

Our Lady of Guadalupe Abbey is a monastery of Cistercian (Trappist) monks who are devoted to a life of contempation in a cloistered
atmosphere. Their day is balanced by prayer, work, spiritual study, and refection.
The Abbey began in April, 1948 at Pecos, New Mexico, as a foundation made by the Community at Valley Falls, Rhode Island. In March 1955 the monks,
not finding farming sufficiently yeilding at that high altitude, sold the property to the Benedictine monks and moved the site to Oregon.
The title "Our Lady of Guadalupe" commemorating Mary's apparitions at Tepeyac, near Mexico City, in 1531, was chosen because of the Mexican influence
in the Southwest, but was gladly brought along to the Northwest.

In recent years the Community has numbered between 35 and 40 members, who range in age from the twenties to the nineties.
The Cistercian Order dates back to the Abbey of Citeaux (near Dijon, France), which was founded in 1098 AD by monks who willed to live the Rule of
St. Benedict in more poverty, seclusion, and strictness than was customary where they were. The vocation of St. Bernard, and the foundation of his
Abbey of Clairvaux in 1115 A.D., started an enormous expansion of the Cistercian Order throughout Europe.
The name "Trappist" comes from the Cistercan Abbey of La Trappe in Normandy, France, reformed in the late 17th century. When the French Revolution
suppressed all the religioous houses in the year 1790, the monks of La Trappe took refuge as a Community in Switzerland, and after many hardships and
wanderings eventually returned to France in 1815 to refound the Abbey and the Congregation of La Trappe. This Congregation flourished and the houses
of Trappists were founded in Europe, the United States and elsewhere, so that at present there are some 100 houses of men and 60 of women throughout
the world.